Posts by Vicki J Kondelik

In Blood Sisters, historian Marilyn Yalom tells the story of the French Revolution through the perspective of women’s memoirs. She studied the memoirs of over eighty women, of various ages and social classes, who lived through the French Revolution. Many of them were aristocratic or upper-class women, because they were more likely to be literate, but she also writes about memoirs by poor or working-class women that were dictated to someone else. All of the memoirs make for compelling stories.

The Satapur Moonstone is a mystery featuring Perveen Mistry, a female lawyer in 1920s India. Perveen travels through the jungle to the princely state of Satapur to settle a dispute between the mother and grandmother of the ten-year-old maharaja over the boy's education. While there, she discovers a web of intrigue. The maharaja's mother thinks that someone is trying to poison her son, and that his older brother's death was no accident. Perveen confirms her suspicions, and realizes the boy is in danger. Will she be able to save him in time?

Murder in Old Bombay is the first in a new mystery series by Nev March, set in colonial India in 1892. The main character, Captain Jim Agnihotri, is a wounded Anglo-Indian army officer who learns about the murder of two women from a prominent family while he is recovering in the hospital and reading the newspapers. After leaving the hospital, Jim uses the techniques of his hero, Sherlock Holmes, to help the family find the murderer. Along the way, he falls in love with the daughter of the family, even though their marriage is forbidden because of their differences in race and caste. Jim's investigation takes him all over India, and you learn many details about life in India in the late 19th century.

One Fatal Flaw is a mystery/courtroom drama set in 1910 London, featuring young lawyer Daniel Pitt and his friend, forensic scientist Miriam fford Croft. Daniel defends a young man accused of arson and murder, and wins his case based on the expert testimony of Miriam's former teacher, Saltram. But when his client is murdered in the same way as the previous victim, Daniel realizes his expert witness was wrong, and this leads him to reopen the 20-year-old case that made Saltram's reputation. In doing so, he gains a powerful enemy.

This is the story of a family of glass-blowers, particularly five siblings, during the French Revolution, by Daphne Du Maurier, author of Rebecca. It is based on her own family. The novel focuses on family relationships, not major historical events, even though many of the events of the French Revolution are discussed as various members of the family learn about them. The five siblings are divided by political beliefs, as each responds to the revolution in different ways.

The Burning Chambers is an epic historical novel set in 16th century France during the wars between the Catholics and the Huguenots. The daughter of a Catholic bookseller falls in love with a Huguenot soldier who wants peace between the two sides. But too many people wish to continue the fighting, and the lives of the hero and heroine are endangered. There is also a mystery about the heroine's origins, and a murderous noblewoman wants to have her killed. Author Kate Mosse has a great love for the area of southern France where the novel takes place, and it shows through in her writing.

This young adult novel, set during a yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793, seems especially timely today. Young Mattie Cook struggles to survive in the fever-stricken city after her mother gets sick. With the help of Eliza, a freed slave, Mattie learns to nurse the sick and help the children orphaned by the fever, and becomes a stronger person. The novel is filled with details of life during the epidemic, some of them quite similar to today's pandemic.

The Shadow of the Wind is a complex, multi-layered novel set in Barcelona in the 1940s and 1950s. A young boy, Daniel, the son of a bookseller, visits the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, an enormous labyrinthine building filled with books. His father tells him to choose one book and adopt it. Daniel becomes so fascinated by the book that he decides to read everything by the author, Julián Carax, only to find out that someone is systematically destroying every copy of Carax's books. Daniel decides to learn as much about the author as possible, and the story of Julián Carax's life becomes a second narrative, with parallels to Daniel's own life. This is a book for all book-lovers!

If your only experience with A Tale of Two Cities was of being forced to read it in high school, it's definitely worth re-reading. It's a wonderful novel set during the French Revolution (unusual for Dickens), with unforgettable characters such as the good-natured rogue Sydney Carton and the bloodthirsty, villainous Madame Defarge.

This historical novel tells the story of Napoleon's stepdaughter, Hortense de Beauharnais, her disastrous marriage to Napoleon's brother Louis, and her love for another man. It provides an unusual perspective on the major events of Napoleon's reign.